Description

Tapper is an action game where you're a beer tapper (barman) and have to serve beer to demanding customers. There are four customers, each has its own lane lengthier than the previous one, whom you have to keep at bay. If they reach the end of the lane without receiving their beer, you're a goner; if you miss one and accidentally spill beer needlessly you lose a life and should one of them throw you back the mug and you fail to catch it, you lose a life as well.

Occasionally a bizarre icon will appear on one of the lines and, should you grab it, will invoke a "cabarette"-style show which will keep some of the customers occupied.

The Xbox 360 version includes bonus rounds, as well as co-op and versus multiplayer modes, also online, along with achievements.

Trivia

1001 Video Games

How to Squeeze an Arcade Into Your 64

Tapper on the Commodore 64 appeared in an article by Julian Rignall in Zzap! (Issue 3 Jul 85 p80) about how accurate to the arcade original it came from. It scored 93%.

Movie appearance

Tapper is one of the games appearing in the Wreck-It Ralph movie. The bartender also has a small speaking role, and the bar seems to serve the same purposes for game characters as it would for people in the real world (drinking, chatting..).

Player character

The player character in this game is based on an employee of the game's designer (Marvin Glass) named Mike Ferris who had the same bald head, glasses and mustache, and always wore a red T-shirt. In the original coin-op versions, his T-shirt is in red. The same man is also found in some other Marvin Glass coin-ops: "Domino Man" and "Timber".

Product placement

The original arcade game featured references to Budweiser ingame, as well as on the cabinet. Most of the home conversions lack these, instead they feature Mountain Dew/Pepsi. Because of laws against advertising alcoholic beverages to minors, another arcade version was released called Root Beer Tapper. The game in the same but you are a soda jerk in game and on the cabinet.